Curving and spiraling staircases have enjoyed wide popularity throughout the world for centuries. Such staircases have come to be synonymous with wealth, fashion and taste because of their tendency to be used only in residences and commercial buildings conceived on a grand scale. The major reason for confining the use of curving staircases to grand homes has been the cost of building such staircases. Not only do curving staircases require much more floorspace than traditional straight staircases, but their construction entails the use of extremely skilled carpentry artisans. With the exception of the most mundane spiral staircases which are available in "kit" form, all curving staircases are custom built for their intended installation location using painstaking carpentry skills.
Such stairbuilding has never lent itself to the economies of scale of mass production due to the complex nature of the geometries involved, coupled with the fact that the geometric specifications differ from staircase to staircase, depending upon the constraints of the architect's floorplan design. Consequently, intricate details such as the graceful curving volutes which terminate the handrails at the bottom of the staircase are carved by hand individually for each staircase constructed. Such hand carving is very time consuming and therefore quite expensive. Furthermore, there is not always an adequate supply of carpenters having the requisite skill necessary to do such work, therefore many such stairs, even though "handmade," suffer from flaws in the execution of the architect's design.
There is therefore a need in the prior art for a staircase handrail volute that can be mass produced in large numbers and subject to strict quality control standards. Such a volute should be capable of being used with many different curving staircase designs so that maximum advantage can be had with economies of scale in its production. The present invention is directed toward meeting these needs.